THE Guyana National Youth Council (GNYC) and its partnering organisations have launched a national youth-led Civic and Voter Education Campaign to enhance the participation of young people in Guyana’s electoral process.

The launching took place at Moray House on Sunday under the theme “Ink It Up: Your Voice. Your Vote”.

As Guyana prepares to host its General and Regional Elections on March 2, 2020, GNYC will target primarily the youth population through peer education, empowerment interventions and relevant information about their rights and responsibilities in the voting process.

The GNYC is a non-governmental network organisation of youth, youth advocates, youth organisations with a youth component advancing youth inclusion in governance, the electoral process and other policies relating to youth in Guyana.

Present at the campaign launch was Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh and representatives of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and civil society organisations.

In her remarks, Justice Singh said that a call must be made for citizens to operate in a peaceful manner on elections day. She cautioned against sensational news reports, which can sometimes incite violence, and called on GNYC to communicate that stories must be verified before sharing.

“You will do your utmost as youth leaders. Go out there and enlighten the electorate and let them know what they should desist from and that is important that they exercise their ballot because that is their constitutional right,” the GECOM Chair encouraged.

“They [citizens] have a right to vote for the person and party of their choice. We are all grateful for this session and for having this exercise as we all know that at election time, tempers and atmosphere is charged [but] we know better and we should try to impart that into other members of the electorate,” she further stated.

According to a GNYC release, the ‘Ink It Up’ Campaign will include a National Training Series for youth in hubs across all administrative regions in collaboration with GECOM.

The young people trained will then host Voters’ Villages, which the Council referred to as “informal and youth-friendly face-to-face voter education” in public spaces in a pop-up format.

These pop-up events will be conducted at various marketplaces, bus parks and shopping malls, among other locations geared at attracting high volumes of youth.

It will feature games, mini-talks and mock polling stations to educate individuals on what happens on the day of elections and the voting process.

The ‘Ink It Up’ campaign will also utilise social media and radio as platforms to spread information on the voting process, roles and responsibilities, among other key non-partisan messages through visual, textual and audio forms.
The GNYC’ radio programme, Youth Talk Back Live (YTBL) will also be a key platform to have two-way dialogue with youth to both motivate and educate an informed youth electorate.